The life of a CFO – how to thrive
The CFO role is not an easy one - there is a real struggle between short term financial objectives and long-term strategic outcomes. Both are very important but need to be balanced.
Getting your priorities right will ensure you thrive and not just survive which ultimately is the goal for every organisation.
While there is a lot to do, I have narrowed down 5 key priorities that any CFO can apply to their role.
The key 5 priorities of a CFO
1. Financial Governance
Focused on financial governance through month-end, balance sheet reviews and working capital management. This eliminates any surprises during an audit. Building a robust process for accurate and timely reporting and forecasting so that good decisions can be made in a timely manner. This creates confidence with regulators and auditors.
2. Optimise the financial position
A CFO is expected to proactively manage and optimise the financial outcome. This requires good forecasting ability, business partnering and the ability to make good commercial decisions.
Work through strategic and operational strategies to optimise the financial position of the company by:
o Actively focusing on working capital management
o Actively managing investments including cashflow timing
o Actively managing government rebates, tax benefits and obligations
o Actively managing strategies to deliver financial outcomes both short term and long term
3. Alignment to strategy
The CFO must work closely with the strategy department to ensure alignment between long term strategies, priorities and the 3-5 year business plan and associated financials. This clear linkage is critical to ensure it all hangs together and will give confidence to the board. The CFO must work through the linkage to ensure key metrics are measured and tracked to ensure lead indicators for managing the success/delivery of the strategy.
4. Holding the business to account
As the CFO it's your job to hold the leadership team and the organisation to account on expenditure, investment, key metrics and achievement of the plan. You must do regular call out of results and ensure you hold the business to account.
5. Building an exceptional team
The quality of the finance team is paramount and ensures the business has the commercial support for decision making. The role of the team to provide insights and business partnering is critical to ensure the Executives and others in organisations have the support to make good commercial decisions.
The CFO role is not easy, but it is enjoyable and rewarding helping the organisation navigate through strategy and financials and measuring success while having the confidence of the regulators and auditors. There is always a lot to do - so focusing on your top 4-5 priorities.
“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.”
At Whiteark we have hands on practical experience to help CFOs navigate and set their company up for success, whatever is the challenge. Please reach out for a no obligation conversation.
Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes.
We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au
